The Evolution of Microstructure and Microhardness of
Sn-Ag and Sn-Cu Solders during High Temperature Aging
Sun-Kyoung Seo1, Sung K. Kang2, Da-Yuan Shih2 and Hyuck Mo Lee1, 3
1. Department of Materials Science and Engineering, KAIST, 335 Gwahangno, Yuseong-gu,
Daejeon 305-701, Republic of Korea
2. IBM T.J. Watson Research Center, Yorktown Heights, NY 10598, USA
3. Email: hmlee@kaist.ac.kr
Abstract
The changes in microstructure and microhardness of Sn-0.5Ag, Sn-1.0Ag, and Sn0.7Cu Pb-free solders were investigated during high temperature aging at 150°C and
200 °C. As-solidified microstructures, revealed by cross-polarized light microscopy,
consist of relatively large Sn grains in both Sn-Ag and Sn-Cu solders. Upon aging at
200 °C, 2h, Sn grains become smaller compared to the as-solidified ones. In addition,
the microhardness of Sn-Ag solders increases after 200 °C, 2h aging, while that of SnCu solder decreases. Detailed observation of the coarsening and redistribution of
intermetallic particles in each system further explains this response of mechanical
properties during high temperature aging. To investigate the effect of aging temperature,
solders were aged at a lower temperature, 150 °C for up to 1000h and compared with
the aged at 200 °C. The microstructure changes during the high temperature aging were
characterized in terms of Sn grain size, crystal orientation, and IMC growth kinetics,
and were further correlated with the changes of their mechanical properties.
Key Words: Pb-free solder, aging, microstructure, Sn grain, and microhardness
1. Introduction
Pb-free solders have been extensively developed to replace Pb-containing solders in
microelectronic packaging applications. The majority of Pb-free solders is Sn-based
alloys with minor alloying elements of Cu, Ag, Ni, Zn and others [1, 2]. The most
popular Pb-free solders include near eutectic Sn-Ag-Cu, Sn-Ag and Sn-Cu alloys.
Although the near-ternary eutectic Sn-Ag-Cu solder is the leading candidate in printed
circuit assembly, the reliability of the solder system has been challenged by several
technical issues, particularly in chip-level interconnect applications, namely, flip-chip
solder joints. Difficulty of electroplating a ternary solder composition, formation of
large intermetallic phases during reflow, high modulus or stiff solder joints are just a
few of the concerns. In order to overcome concerns of near-ternary Sn-Ag-Cu, Sn-Ag or
Sn-Cu binary systems, a low Ag and/or Cu content are proposed to produce low
modulus or more ductile flip-chip interconnections [3, 4].
As a microelectronic package increasingly demands more I/O (input/output) counts,
smaller pitch, smaller solder bumps and higher electric current per solder bump, flipchip solder joints are expected to be exposed at a very high thermal stress and
temperature. At a high temperature, the microstructure of Sn-base solders would
significantly change, and consequently their mechanical properties would be affected.
Therefore, in this study, the high temperature stability of microstructure and mechanical
properties of Sn-low Ag (0.5 and 1.0 wt %) and Sn-0.7Cu (wt %) alloys is investigated
during the aging at 200 °C and 150 °C. The microstructural investigation of the solders
includes the changes of Sn grain size and their crystal orientation, and the coarsening
rate of IMC particles (Cu6Sn5 vs. Ag3Sn) as a function of aging time.
2. Experiment
Sn-0.5Ag, Sn-1.0Ag, and Sn-0.7Cu solder balls (380 μm in diameter) used in this
study were commercially produced. Solders were reflowed at 250 °C for 10 min and
cooled in air (~10 °C/sec). Because the melting temperature of the solder alloys is about
230 °C, all solders were melted at 250 °C. Subsequently, the reflowed solder balls were
aged at 200 °C for up to 8h, and at 150 °C for up to 1000h in a nitrogen atmosphere.
Finely polished cross-sections of solder balls were examined with an optical
microscope under both bright-field and cross-polarized imaging conditions. Crosspolarized images revealed Sn grain structures, while bright field images exhibited the
presence of intermetallic particles and their network structure. To obtain the information
on Sn crystal orientation, electron backscattering diffraction (EBSD) technique was
employed.
Microhardness tests were performed using 5 g force and 5 sec dwell-time on the
cross-sections of multiple solder balls. The Vickers hardness number (VHN) was
reported as an average value of 15 indentations or more.
Thermodynamic calculations using the Thermo-Calc software developed at the Royal
Institute of Technology, Stockholm, Sweden [5] were conducted to obtain the solubility
of Ag and Cu in Sn at various temperatures.
3. Results and Discussion
The microstructure of the aged solders at 200 °C
Figure 1 shows typical cross-polarized light images of Sn-0.5Ag, Sn-1.0Ag and Sn0.7Cu both as-solidified and aged at 200 °C for 2, 4, and 8h. Different color contrasts
mean the different orientations of Sn grains. Pure Sn was reported to have 1~3 large
grains in 1 mm diameter solder balls, independent of cooling rate [6]. In a rapidly
solidified condition, Sn-low Ag solders (both 0.5 and 1.0 Ag) have a few large Sn grains
with some cyclic twins, while Sn-0.7Cu has only large 1 or 2 Sn grains per solder ball
(no cyclic twins) as shown in Fig. 1(a), (b) and (c).
After aging at 200 °C for 2h, unusually many small grains are observed in solder
balls of Sn-Ag and Sn-Cu as shown in Fig. 1(d), (e), and (f). Sn-Ag solders show
smaller grains than Sn-Cu, and the grain size in Sn-Ag appears to decrease as Ag
content increases. As the aging time increases more at 200 °C, the grain size of Sn-Ag
becomes larger. In Fig. 1(h), Sn-1.0Ag aged for 4h shows a mixture of small and large
grains, which suggests this aging condition being the transition point from a fine grain
structure to large grains. In Sn-Cu solders, the mixture of small and large grains is
observed in 2, 4 and 8h aging.
As shown in Table 1, the solubility of Ag and Cu in the liquid Sn at 250 °C is
evaluated by the Thermo-Calc method as 5.03 and 1.23 wt % respectively, while in the
solid Sn at 200 °C and 150 °C, less than 0.05, 0.003 wt % respectively [7-8]. All the
excess Ag and Cu solute atoms above the solubility limit in the solid state would
precipitate as intermetallic compounds (IMC) when Sn-base solders solidify under an
equilibrium condition. However, in air-cooling after reflow, all the excess Ag and Cu
atoms would not immediately precipitate due to the fast cooling rate, and more Ag and
Cu atoms than predicted by the equilibrium phase diagram would therefore remain in
the solder matrix. When the air-cooled solder balls were subsequently aged, the
remaining Ag or Cu atoms would then precipitate as IMCs during the early stage of
aging.
To follow the evolution of the microstructure during the aging conditions, a
systematic observation was conducted to reveal the precipitation of IMCs and their
network formation by the bright-field light images. In Sn-Ag, during the aging at 200 °
C, the β-Sn dendrite cell boundaries were broken up into a smaller size and additional
Ag3Sn particles were precipitated along the cell boundaries in 2 h aging, as shown in
Fig. 2(d) and (e). This would be responsible for the finer grain size observed in Fig. 1(d)
and (e). Since the aging temperature, 200 °C is very close to the melting temperature of
solders, about 230 °C, a fast interstitial diffusion of Ag atoms in Sn is expected as noted
from Table 2 [9-11], and a high frequency of thermal vibration of atoms would easily
change their microstructure such as cell boundary migration or rearrangement, IMC
precipitation and growth, and others. During the longer aging times of 4 h and 8 h,
further coarsening of grains, β-Sn cells and IMC particles were noted. The IMC particle
coarsening during the longer aging times would follow the kinetics of Ostwald ripening.
In Sn-Cu, the mixture of β-Sn phase and eutectic structure was totally broken and
coarsened Cu6Sn5 particles were dispersed randomly in β-Sn after 2h aging as shown in
Fig. 2(c) and (f). Owing to the higher diffusivity of Cu in Sn than that of Ag in Sn
(Table 2), the microstructure change in Sn-Cu is expected to be more significant. The
redistribution of Cu6Sn5 particles during 200 °C aging also affects the alignment of Sn
cell boundaries and yields a mixture of small and large Sn grains in the Sn-Cu aged
from 2h to 8h.
Figure 3 describes the change of the average particle size of Cu6Sn5 and Ag3Sn during
the aging at 200 °C. The initial size of Cu6Sn5 in Sn-0.7Cu (~1.8 μm in average
diameter) is larger than Ag3Sn in Sn-1.0Ag (~1.0 μm) before aging. As the aging time
increases, both Cu6Sn5 and Ag3Sn particles become larger. By plotting the average
particle size (x) vs. time (t) in a log-log graph, the slope of the graph, time exponent (n)
of the growth law, ( x = xo + ktn) was obtained for Cu6Sn5 and Ag3Sn particles. The n
values by linear fitting are 0.58 in Sn-Cu and 0.32 in Sn-Ag. Because n in Sn-Cu is
close to 1/2, the growth of Cu6Sn5 particles is confirmed to follow a parabolic growth
rate. And the slow growth of Ag3Sn having the time exponent (n) close to 1/3 appears to
follow the Ostwald ripening kinetics in general, but for the short time aging like 2 h, the
growth could be still parabolic. This different growth kinetics of Cu6Sn5 vs Ag3Sn
particles could be explained by considering the faster diffusivity of Cu over Ag in Sn
(Table 2) and the larger solubility of Ag over Cu at 200 °C (Table 1). From the results of
the IMC growth kinetics and the observation of the initial IMC particle sizes, it can be
concluded that Ag3Sn in Sn-Ag is more stable than Cu6Sn5 in Sn-Cu at the high
temperature aging at 200 °C.
The microstructure of the aged solders at 150 °C
In order to investigate the effects of aging temperature on the microstructure
evolution, an additional aging test was conducted at 150 °C for up to 1000h. Figure 4
shows the cross-polarized images of Sn-Ag and Sn-Cu aged at 150 °C. Sn grain size in
both Sn-Ag and Sn-Cu was hardly changed until 100h aging. After 500h, smaller grains
were observed, and then large grains after 1000h. The fine grain structure observed in
Sn-1.0Ag aged at 150 °C for 500h was similar to those observed in Sn-1.0Ag aged at
200 °C for 2h.
Since the diffusion rate of solute atoms is slower at 150 °C and the formation energy
of Ag3Sn and Cu6Sn5 IMCs is also smaller than in 200 °C , the IMC formation and other
microstructure changes are expected to be much slower at 150 °C than 200 °C.
Therefore, as shown in Fig. 5(d) and (e), IMC particles were somewhat coarsened, but
their distribution was not changed much after 100h in Sn-Ag aged at 150 °C. In Sn1.0Ag, IMCs were additionally formed and coarsened enough to yield the fine structure
after 500h. And then, after 1000h, IMC and β-Sn phases kept coarsening, and Sn grains
again became larger. In Sn-Cu aged at 150 °C, after 100h, β-Sn and eutectic structure
were totally broken up and IMC particles significantly coarsened. Although the size and
distribution of IMC particles in the aged at 150 °C, 100h are similar to that in the aged
at 200 °C, 2h, only large grains are observed in aged at 150 °C, 100h.
Figure 6 shows the change of average IMC particle size during the aging at 150 °C.
Comparing with Fig. 3, the growth rate of IMC size at 150 °C is about 100 times slower
than at 200 °C. When aged at 200 °C up to 8h, the time exponent is 0.58 in Sn-0.7Cu
and 0.32 in Sn-1.0Ag as shown in Fig. 3(b), but the n values of the aged at 150 °C (up
to 1000h) are reduced to 0.23 in Sn-0.7Cu and 0.15 in Sn-1.0Ag. This could mean that
when aging at 150 °C for a long time, the overall kinetics of IMC coarsening would
follow the Oswald ripening type for both Sn-Ag and Sn-Cu solders. However, a detailed
examination of the IMC growth behavior in Fig. 6 reveals that the initial IMC growth
up to 100 h would follow a parabolic growth kinetics for both IMCs and then change to
a slow coarsening kinetics such as Ostwald ripening. It is again confirmed that Ag3Sn in
Sn-Ag is more stable than Cu6Sn5 in Sn-Cu during the long-time aging at 150 °C.
Figure 7 compares a cross-polarized image with a bright-field image of Sn-1.0Ag aged
at 150 °C, 1000h. Grain boundaries observed in the cross-polarized image are marked
on the bright field image with dotted lines. An interesting observation is made such that
Sn grain boundaries don’t always match to the dendrite boundaries of β-Sn phase where
most IMC particles are located to form the IMC network. As shown in Fig. 7(b), the
IMC network is much smaller than most of the Sn grains. The similar observation was
also made in Sn-Cu. As discussed later, the mechanical properties of Sn-Ag and Sn-Cu
solders are better correlated with the IMC characteristics (density, size and distribution)
rather than Sn grain size.
To get the information on Sn grain orientation of the fine structure of Sn-Ag aged,
EBSD technique was employed. A typical example of this study is shown in Fig. 8.
Figure 8(a) is the SEM backscattered (BS) image and Fig. 8(b) is an inverse pole figure
image of the scan area. Fig. 8(c) is the pole figure projected in Wulff net. Only three
crystal orientations were observed in the scan area as shown in Fig. 8(b) and (c). Each
Sn grain rotates about 60 degree on [100] axis. Namely, the fine structure observed in of
the aged Sn-Ag consists of the cyclic twin boundaries with the twin plan (301) and axis
<100>. This result is similar to the EBSD results of the fine structure observed in Sn-Ag
cooled with 100 °C/sec and 0.3 °C/sec after reflow in the previous reports [12, 13].
Hence, the fine structure observed in the Sn-Ag solders fast-cooled or aged is attributed
to the twin boundaries having <100> twin axis and 60° rotation.
The microhardness of solders before and after aging
Figure 9 exhibits the microhardness data of Sn-Ag and Sn-Cu as a function of aging
conditions. The microhardness of Sn-Ag and Sn-Cu solders is well correlated with the
characteristics of their intermetallics, such as particle size, density and distribution as
shown in Fig. 2 and Fig. 5. Figure 2(a), (b), and (c) show the microstructure consists of
the eutectic structure and β-Sn cells in as-solidified. The area percentages of the eutectic
structure in each solder are measured to be 7.3 % in Sn-0.5Ag, 18.2 % in Sn-1.0Ag, and
42.4 % in Sn-0.7Cu as-solidified. The eutectic area in Sn-0.7Cu is over two times larger
than in Sn-1.0Ag. But the hardness of Sn-0.7Cu is smaller than Sn-1.0Ag as shown in
Fig. 9. To explain this, the microhardness measurement was performed in the eutectic
area vs. β-Sn area. Fig. 10 displays an example of this measurement. In Sn-Cu, with 5 gf
for 5 sec, the hardness in the eutectic area is measured to be 12.0 and in β-Sn cells, 9.8
HV, depending on the location. Therefore, the hardness measured on random 15 sites of
Sn-Cu is in the range of 10~12 HV. In Sn-Ag, because the eutectic area is formed along
β-Sn cell boundaries with a narrow width, the Vickers indenter with 5 gf could not
easily differentiate the eutectic area from the β-Sn matrix. Hence, the hardness in the
eutectic area as a central point (Fig. 10(c)) and the hardness in β-Sn cells as a central
point (Fig. 10(d)) are 12.3 and 12.6 respectively, which is of little difference. In spite of
a smaller eutectic area in Sn-Ag, the hardness of Sn-Ag is higher than Sn-Cu, because
the eutectic structure surrounding β-Sn cells is finer and more uniformly distributed in
Sn-Ag than in Sn-Cu.
After the aging at 200 °C, 2 h, in Sn-Ag, the hardness increased because of the
additional precipitation of Ag3Sn particles. This is an age hardening effect due to IMC
precipitation. But as the aging time increased, Ag3Sn particles coarsened and its
hardness decreased after 4h, and remained constant during further aging. In Sn-Cu, as
the aging time increased at 200 °C, the hardness steadily decreased up to 8h. This could
be explained by observing that the fine eutectic structure was totally broken and Cu6Sn5
particles coarsened obviously during the aging, which resulted the reduction in hardness.
When the aging experiment was conducted at 150 °C, the hardness of both Sn-Ag and
Sn-Cu decreased until 100h because the eutectic structure along the Sn dendrites
became discontinuous due to the coarsening of IMC particles without enough additional
IMC precipitation. As the aging time further increased up to 1000h, the hardness
remained more or less constant, probably because the coarsened IMC particles (2~6 μm)
may not much affect their hardness changes.
4. Summary
In this study, the changes in the microstructure and microhardness of Sn-0.5Ag, Sn1.0Ag, and Sn-0.7Cu Pb-free solders were investigated during the high temperature
aging at 150 °C and 200 °C. The following conclusions are drawn;
1) During the high temperature aging at 200 °C, the remarkable changes in the
microstructures of Sn-Ag and Sn-Cu solders were observed in the early stage of
aging in terms of Sn grain size, crystal orientation, cyclic twins and IMC growth .
2) During the long-term aging at 150 °C for up to 1000h, the changes in the
microstructures in both Sn-Ag and Sn-Cu solders were less significant than at
200 °C. The growth kinetics of IMC particles was less pronounced compared with
those at 200 °C.
3) In general, the microstructure of Sn-Ag solders was found to be more stable than
Sn-Cu under the same aging condition.
4) The growth kinetics of Ag3Sn particles in Sn-Ag is much slower than Cu6Sn5 in
Sn-Cu during the high temperature aging at 150 °C and 200 °C. Accordingly,
Ag3Sn particles are more stable than Cu6Sn5 during the high temperature aging.
This also agrees with the microstructure stability of Sn-Ag over Sn-Cu at a similar
level of solute content.
5) The microhardness of Sn-Ag aged at 200 °C initially increased due to additional
precipitation of Ag3Sn, then decreased somewhat and remained constant up to 8 h,
while a steady reduction in the microhardness of Sn-Cu as the aging time increased.
For the aging at 150 °C, the changes in microhardness in both solders were gradual.
6) The changes in microhardness during the high temperature aging were better
correlated with the characteristics of IMCs than Sn grain structure.
Acknowledgement
The contribution of Minhua Lu and Christian Witt for EBSD analysis was greatly
appreciated when S. K. Seo was working at IBM as a graduate intern student.
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6. Figures
Figure 1. Cross-polarized images of as-reflowed and aged at 200 °C for 2, 4 and 8h.
Figure 2. Bright optical images of as-reflowed and aged at 200 °C for 2, 4 and 8h.
Figure 3. The change of average diameters of IMC particles in Sn-Ag and Sn-Cu with
the increase of aging time at 200 °C.
Figure 4. Cross-polarized images of as-solidified and aged at 150 °C for 100, 500 and
1000h.
Figure 5. Bright optical images of as-solidified and aged at 150 °C for 100, 500 and
1000h.
Figure 6. The change of average diameters of IMC particles in Sn-Ag and Sn-Cu with
the increase of aging time at 150 °C.
Figure 7. Comparison a cross-polarized image with a bright-field image (a) crosspolarized image of Sn-1.0Ag aged at 150 °C for 1000h (b) bright-field image of same
area with grain boundaries lines.
Figure 8. EBSD analysis of Sn-Ag aged at 150 °C for 500h (a) the SEM image of the
scan area, (b) the inverse pole figure image, and (c) the pole figure projected in Wulff
net.
Figure 9. Microhardness data of solders before and after aging (a) at 200 °C (b) at
150 °C.
Figure 10. Vickers hardness marks in (a) the eutectic area of Sn-0.7Cu, (b) β-Sn cells of
Sn-0.7Cu, (c) the eutectic area as a central point of Sn-1.0Ag, and (d) β-Sn cells as a
central point of Sn-1.0Ag as-solidified.
7. Tables
Table 1. The solubility of Ag and Cu in Sn at 250 °C, 200 °C and 150 °C.
Table 2. The diffusivity of Ag and Cu in Sn and Sn self-diffusivity at 200 °C and
150 °C.